


Heart in Azkaban

by Lomonaaeren



Series: July Celebration Fics [27]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Azkaban, Gen or Pre-Slash, Heavy Angst, Imprisonment, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 10:42:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7614886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry can’t do much for Draco, who’s imprisoned in Azkaban despite all the testimony Harry could offer for him. But what he can do, he will.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Another of my July Celebration fics, for the following anonymous prompt: _I'd love to see a story with Draco being prisoner of Azkaban after his trial as a Death Eater, and Harry coming to work in Azkaban (since he can't prevent Draco to be incarcerated despite his celebrity and his position as Savior) to prevent Draco to be too depressed because of the Dementors, and be his friend, as he tries to free him legally. Of course, love ensues between Harry, the hero of poor soul, and Draco who's looking for a personal hero_. This may not quite qualify as getting all the way to a romance, but I hope it satisfies. Due to issues with my Internet access, it will be posted in four installments, and is therefore the last of my fics for July; I hope to post the other ones I have half-written later.

Harry took a deep breath as he walked through the tunnels towards the cell that was his daily destination. Even when he was perfectly capable of casting a Patronus that would hold back Dementors, and both they knew it and he knew it, he shivered every time he was on the island.

_They can’t hurt me. I’m here for someone else._

The words repeated in his head like a chant, and Harry finally found himself standing outside a thick door that was banded with a mixture of iron and silver that supposedly disrupted magic. It was a new addition after the war; the Ministry officials claimed it would prevent anyone from turning into an animal the way Sirius had in his cell.

Of course, they referred to Peter Pettigrew when they said that. But Harry didn’t care. He knew the truth.

When he was this close to the door Malfoy lay a prisoner behind, then he felt himself relaxing and straightening his shoulders. He suffered from being close to Dementors, but he could go home at the end of the day and abandon his job as general janitor and guard and comfort-creator. Malfoy was here all the time.

Harry had thought—well, he’d thought he’d be able to stop it. With Narcissa pardoned for saving him and Malfoy being a kid at the time and with barely anyone testifying against him because he hadn’t actually hurt students at the school in his seventh year, Harry hadn’t taken defending him seriously.

And now Malfoy was paying the price.

The charms on the door examined Harry, raking over him in a process that felt like a barbed net, to make sure he was supposed to be there. Harry gritted his teeth and held still. He was the one who hadn’t fought or argued hard enough. He could bear the price.

Finally, with a faint noise like a disappointed snicker, the charms pulled back, and the door swung open. Harry stepped into the cell.

It was bare and cold, as all the others were, except for those prisoners who had wealthy families that could bribe the guards. In Malfoy’s case, Harry was the one who brought extra food and blankets. He’d also brought a picture from the Manor, of a soaring dragon, that Narcissa had said was her son’s favorite, and today he had a hood of soft grey wool that Malfoy could clip to the cloak Harry had already given him. None of the other guards would object; since a lot of them made extra money from bribes, they didn’t try to take away prisoners’ gifts, or they could find themselves facing anger from their fellow guards.

Harry hated a lot about Azkaban, but it was also teaching him a lot—about miscarriages of justice, if nothing else.

“Malfoy?”

“I can’t stand it.”

In a moment, Harry was across the cell and over crouching by Malfoy’s side. Most of the time, he would have hesitated, if only because Malfoy was protective of what little privacy and personal space he had. But when he spoke in that soft and whimpering a voice, then Harry lost his fear of what Malfoy would think of him if he tried to intrude.

“It’s all right,” Harry said, and focused as hard as he could on the moment when he and Ron and Hermione had last had dinner together, laughing about the Horcrux hunt finally being over and done. “ _Expecto Patronum_!”

The stag manifested and pranced up and down by Malfoy’s low blanket-bed. Harry waited expectantly. Most of the time, Malfoy started breathing more easily within a few minutes of the Patronus appearing.

But this time, he kept on huddling. Harry tugged his blanket up over his ears, but that didn’t appear to help. “Malfoy?” he whispered again.

“I can’t stand to hear you call me by that name.” Malfoy rolled over and stared up at him with blurring eyes. “You always sound so _hateful_ when you say it!”

Harry flinched. He hadn’t known that. “You want me to call you—Draco?” Another thing he hadn’t done because he had thought Malfoy would want to hold onto the privacy and formality between them.

Malfoy caught Harry’s fingers. His own hand was freezing, colder than the stone beneath them. “Please,” he said. “Please. Please. For my _sanity_.”

Harry nodded slowly, and hooked the hood onto the cloak without moving away from Malfoy. “Yes. All right. Draco. Whatever you want.”

Draco gave a breath as soft as the cloak’s wool and sank into sleep, just like that, as if he’d been awake all night and had finally succumbed to sheer exhaustion. Harry bowed his head and clutched his hand back.

The thought of how terribly Malfoy must be hurt, how horrible it must be for him to have no one but an enemy to depend on, kept Harry there and still for the rest of his allotted time, until he absolutely had to leave to go on his rounds. The Ministry didn’t dare turn him down when he requested a job at Azkaban, but Harry knew they were always watching him narrowly. Make too much of a fuss or neglect his duties, and they would remove him in a second “for the good of his health.”

Harry did pause to look back once. His Patronus glowed beside Draco’s bed, on guard. Harry nodded to it and slipped out the door.


	2. Chapter 2

"He's been asking for you, Potter."

The guard who spoke the words, Julius, kept his face averted. In general, he talked so little that Harry wasn't even sure of his surname. He nodded back once and turned to make sure that he'd sealed the last door behind him.

Procedure, always, except when it came to Malfoy. The Ministry might be watching him, but they weren't going to find a flaw in his performance, not when it really mattered.

_He wants to be called Draco now, not Malfoy_ , Harry remembered, and shook his head a little as he made his way towards the right corridor. It still puzzled him that Draco trusted him this much, even when Harry hadn't defended him strongly enough and had been the bane of his school existence for years, but he didn't want to question it.

_After what he's been through, he has the right to any strange preference he likes._

*

The stag Patronus was long gone when Harry came into Draco's cell, which made him grimace a little. Still, he couldn't hold it all day. He cast it most mornings, and it would probably stay an hour or three. Harry was practicing in his off evenings; he hoped to eventually be able to maintain it for a day.

Draco lay curled so small under the weight of the blanket and cloak that he looked as if he'd lost weight. Harry bent down beside him and touched his shoulder.

There was no warning. Draco simply rolled over and straight into his arms. Harry froze in surprise, and Draco bundled himself closer and closer and said, in a strained voice, "Don't turn me away."

Harry breathed out and shook his head. "Of course not," he said, and he tugged Draco over until they were more or less sitting close together, Draco draped across his lap. Harry's ears burned, but if Draco wasn't embarrassed, he reckoned he couldn't be, either.

"You came for me."

Draco's statement was simple, but Harry could only imagine how many hopeless cries lay behind those words. He knew his voice would betray him if he tried to speak, shake or crumble or show his pity, and so he nodded and gathered Draco closer.

"Will you always come for me?" Draco asked, and the question sounded almost philosophical. But his arms tightened like strangling ropes around Harry when Harry hesitated. " _Will_ you?"

"If you need me to," Harry said, and rocked Draco back and forth, eyes locked on that bland, icy grey wall that was all Draco had to look at, other than the picture of the dragon Harry had brought him, and Prongs and Harry when they were there. "As long as you want me to. I will."

"That's _all_ I want," Draco said drowsily, and his arms tightened again. He squirmed around until his head was beneath Harry's chin. "You're the only one who gives a shit about me. You're the only one I want here."

"Draco, no," Harry began, despite knowing it might not be a good idea to contradict him. "Your mother wants to come--it's just that the Ministry has forbidden her to visit--"

"The only one." Draco lifted his head.

His eyes looked so feverish that Harry found himself nodding, despite not being sure if this agreement was good for Draco. What happened when his sentence was done? Would he distrust his mother, who had longed to do so much for him, but found herself held back by the same restrictions that would have held Harry back if not for his name?

At the moment, though, with Draco wrapped so close that it was hard for Harry to tell where his own breathing and heartbeat ended and Draco's began, it seemed like no price could be too much to pay for his happiness.

*

"Mr. Potter. I understand that you have been spending a large amount of your time with Mr. Malfoy."

_Listen to them call him Mr. Malfoy, as if they actually respect him_. Harry kept his back and shoulders straight and his gaze level, though, mimicking the posture of a soldier as best he could. It was the one power he had over people like the one sitting in front of him, the new Temporary Governor in Charge of Azkaban.

Kingsley Shacklebolt was a good man, but he couldn't be everywhere, and some of his delegates were mistakes. Like this one, Gerald Jackson, who had lost Muggle relatives to the Death Eaters and wanted them all dead.

But not cleanly dead, which was a motive Harry could at least accept because he'd felt it in battle himself. He wanted them tortured and starved. He'd already got a reprimand from the Ministry because he'd tried to restrict the food rations given to prisoners.

Harry just hoped that Jackson never found out it was Harry who'd reported that, or Harry would probably not be able to help Draco at all.

"I suppose someone has to do it," Harry said, as if doubtfully. He shook his head a little when Jackson stared at him. "It's just--sir, if I don't do this, there are certain factions in the public who will dare to question my image. They'll say that I don't care for defeated enemies, or some such." He sighed slowly and shook his head. "I have to stay with him for now. Until the eye of the public turns away from me, at least."

Jackson stared at him, his fingers doing a slow drumroll on the desk beside him. Harry kept up the posture of good little soldier. The papers were already losing interest in him, and of course helping Draco had nothing to do with them, but it was the only sort of "excuse" some people would accept.

Finally, Jackson said, "I suppose I can accept that. As long as you're not doing it from some kind of romantic motive."

Harry lost his composure and visibly started, he knew. " _Romantic_?"

"Ah." Jackson leaned further back and nodded. "I thought you hadn't heard that rumor. There are a few people saying you were obsessed with Malfoy in school. Enough to take visible risks for his sake, perhaps."

That Jackson thought spending time with Draco in prison a visible risk passed without his saying. But Harry knew he wasn't a Legilimens, so he just smiled at Jackson with a slight shake of his head. "I know what I'm doing, sir. Enough to try and make the public perception of me work in _my_ favor, for once. If people are stupid enough to believe I was in love with Malfoy, they're stupid enough to believe any pretense."

Jackson only nodded again, and the double sense of Harry's words sailed right past him. Harry had to admit that he did enjoy it when that happened. "As long as you're apprised of the rumors, Potter. I thought you wouldn't enjoy hearing them any more than I did."

"Thank you, sir. You're right, I don't." Harry inclined his head to the man and headed out of the barren little office that he had to report to every few weeks, in order to convince Jackson he was carrying out the bastard's plan for revenge in a more subtle way.

Soon he would have to go home and take a shower. Being near Jackson was fouler, in some ways, than being near a Dementor. A Dementor had to follow its nature; a human had the ability to know better.

But in the meantime, he knew he would go and see Draco again. Because if he didn't, who would?

*

"Get _away_ from him."

_I suppose that answers that question about who else would visit him,_ Harry thought as he aimed his wand at the guard who'd been bending over Draco, and who straightened up hastily when he saw Harry in the doorway. Draco looked as if he was unconscious, but that could have been from the proximity of Dementors.

Then Harry saw the black bruise on the side of Draco's neck, and purest dark rage took over his actions.

"He's _mine_ ," Harry said, and managed to control his next words if not his curses. His nonverbal Blasting Curse slammed the other guard into the wall, and made him wail as his wand went flying from his hand. Harry stalked towards him and snapped his teeth in the other guard's face. " _My_ source of bribes. Did you think that I would stand by and say nothing while you abused him? Did you?"

"Potter--"

" _Did you_?"

His magic broke out of him, the way it sometimes had since the war, although usually only when Dementors were nearby. It circled him in a dark, rising wind that Harry thought he was the only one to really be able to see properly, as black streamers that had wings and claws and fangs. But others could certainly feel something was wrong, and the guard began to choke long before the black streamers came near him.

"Potter, he's alive and my family is dead!"

"I don't care," Harry snapped. "I know for sure he didn't kill your family, or he would be here for a lot longer than he is. I know the exact length of his sentence. Did you think I didn't? Did you think I would take bribes from someone whose crimes I didn't know, didn't _understand_?" He stalked towards the guard and jabbed his wand into his Adam's apple, making him choke for a different reason. "Someone who I didn't know exactly how to punish?"

"You aren't punishing him," the guard mumbled. "You just coddle him and bring him things and try to--"

Harry hit him with the Memory Charm so hard that the guard's mouth fell open and he started drooling, and Harry was worried that he'd reduced him to Lockhart's status for a second. But then he started recovering and looking less distressed, so Harry said, "You came in and had a talk with me about Malfoy, and I told you I knew very well how to punish him, and you were satisfied. Leave now."

The guard stumbled on the way out, but he was out. And Harry knelt down by Draco and healed the bruise, and cast a charm at the door that would veil any sight inside, and drew Draco into his arms.

Draco came back to consciousness slowly. The first Harry really knew of him being present was when he stirred and mumbled, "Told you."

"What?" Harry cast a Warming Charm, and Draco's shivering eased.

"Told you that you would always come when I needed you," Draco mumbled, and turned his face into Harry's arm, and went back to sleep.


	3. Part Three

"Tell me the truth about Draco, Mr. Potter."

_She looks worn_ , was Harry's first thought. Then he wanted to sneer at himself. Of course Narcissa Malfoy bloody looked worn. Her husband and son were both in prison. She had escaped only because she'd done something daring and reckless. And it had been mostly for Draco's sake that she'd saved his own life, Harry knew.

He wondered if she regretted it, now, but seeing the way she stared at him, he realized she was still waiting for an answer to her question. He cleared his throat in embarrassment and replied, "He's holding up, Mrs. Malfoy. He needs me a lot, and he wants me to call him by his first name. He's also sensitive to the Dementors."

He thought about telling Mrs. Malfoy that another guard had been abusing Draco, but immediately dismissed the thought. He didn't know the guard's name, for one thing, and Mrs. Malfoy would think Harry was holding back if he couldn't give her a name. And if he could, then she would do something vengeful. 

Harry understood the impulse, but there was nothing more likely than Narcissa Malfoy's interference to convince Jackson there was something inappropriate going on with him and Draco.

"That does not sound like holding up to me."

Harry sighed and forcibly brought his mind back to the conversation in front of him instead of the one he hoped to have with Draco later. They were in his drafty little front room in the flat that was all he could afford on an Azkaban guard's wages. Mrs. Malfoy sat as if she was afraid she would get worms from his chair. "He is, Mrs. Malfoy. He tells me what he needs, and I provide it."

"Explain to me what that means."

"He said he couldn't stand it that I called him by his last name. He wanted me to call him Draco. And he tells me that I'm the only one will take care of him. I proved that to him, I think, by coming when he needed me." Harry hoped Mrs. Malfoy didn't ask about the context of that.

She seemed unlikely to. In fact, she bowed her head and even took a sip of the tea, which she thought inferior; she'd conveyed that to Harry without speaking. But now...

Harry held back his sigh. He hoped he didn't end up with two Malfoys to take care of.

"I would rescue him if I could. Does he ask about me?"

"He does," Harry said, which was perfectly true. Draco might not do it as often as his mother thought of him, but he had his sanity to hang onto, and once again, Harry felt unable to judge someone who had that to cope with. "He knows you have to keep yourself safe, though."

"Keep myself safe," Mrs. Malfoy repeated, with a frown that Harry would once have thought incredible of someone who had been in Slytherin.

"By not doing something stupid in an attempt to get him rescued," Harry said, staring at her, "which would prove that he has an ally in the prison as well as outside it."

Mrs. Malfoy sat back with a haughty movement that reminded Harry of when he'd first seen her at the Quidditch World Cup. Her hands shook a moment before she clenched them on her knees. "You could _dare_ to say such a thing to me."

"Yes," Harry said. "The Ministry is volatile right now, you know that, with people like Gerald Jackson in charge. He'd love a chance to arrest you and put you in prison right alongside Draco and Lucius. I can hear him now, crowing about having the whole set."

Maybe it was the almost perfect imitation of Jackson's voice he did, but Mrs. Malfoy eased slowly back in her seat, her face still hard and uncompromising, but her hands relaxing. "You know more about politics than I would have thought you did, Mr. Potter."

Harry had to smile. He didn't care if it was grim right now. "I've been forced to learn."

"But no one forced you to take care of my son. Why did you?"

Harry swallowed and met Mrs. Malfoy's gaze as directly as he could, despite knowing how she would react to what he had to say. "If I'd fought a little harder, he might not have gone to Azkaban. It was so sure to me that they would release him, I forgot about the way the Wizengamot is approaching things now..."

"Ah." Again Mrs. Malfoy's fingers clenched on her lap, knuckles turning the color of snow, and then relaxed. "I think you blame the wrong people, Mr. Potter. You should blame the, as you say, volatile mood of the Ministry."

Harry simply shook his head. "I can do that, or I can blame the right people. Which is most people except you and Draco."

Mrs. Malfoy gave him a strange smile. "I am beginning to see why Draco feels at home with you. What a very Malfoy thing to say."

*

"I saw your mum today."

Draco, basking in the light of Prongs and sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Harry, as tight as Ron and Hermione had during the Horcrux hunt, said nothing. But Harry soldiered on. He thought it was important to remind Draco of his family.

"She was worried about you. But she said that I sounded like part of your family." Harry hoped Draco would smile at that, but he only closed his eyes and let his head fall on Harry's shoulder. Harry sighed and stroked his hair. "She said it was a Malfoy thing to say, to say only you and her were excused from blame for you being here."

"There's another person," Draco whispered.

"Who?" Harry asked, hoping that it was a sign Draco was going to talk about Lucius, which he hadn't done since he was here.

Draco turned his head, eyes as luminous as snow. "You."

Harry sighed and rubbed Draco's shoulder with one hand. Draco had said that was a simple thing he missed, and his friends or house-elves used to do it for him. Seeing the way he arched his neck now and closed his eyes, Harry was willing to bet that some of his friends thought his satisfied-cat look was all the payment they needed.

"If you want to believe that, then I won't say anything else," Harry promised. "The last thing I want to do is distress you."

"Ah, Harry," Draco whispered. "You don't really believe it. But you're willing to let me do that. You're willing to let me act as much like a normal person as possible, given the situation. Thank you."

His voice sounded almost teary. Harry would have backed away before, let him have his space and control his voice. That was what a person as proud as Draco Malfoy would want, in Harry's estimation.

But this was Draco, not Malfoy, and so Harry hesitantly put an arm around his shoulders and said, "I think the main reason I'm to blame is that I didn't fight hard enough. I thought your trial was all wrapped up. They offered to let me come in for three days of testimony, but I only did one."

Draco's hand covered his fingers and squeezed. "I know," he whispered. "I know, Harry. And I don't blame you."

Harry paused. There was something specific in those words, he thought, something special that Draco was trying to say to him. He just didn't know what it was. "And you want to listen to something other than me blaming myself?" he hazarded.

Draco gave a muffled snort. Harry had to smile. It was such an intense, interesting sound, and he knew he wouldn't have thought that only a few months ago, but he couldn't really care. He was just glad that Draco remained _capable_ of a sound like that, when he had been in Azkaban.

"I would rather you didn't blame yourself at all," Draco said, lifting his head and shaking it so that his hair fell down on his shoulders in a rather attractive fashion. "But if I can't get that, then I'll settle for not listening to you blame yourself, yes."

Harry swallowed. "It's just," he said, aware of Draco's eyes and yet wanting to get this out, "I could have fought harder."

"You could have. And the Wizengamot could have been more merciful and not such a bunch of bastards." Draco sighed through his nose. "Neither happened. If you want to blame yourself and keep quiet, do, by all means." He turned a little to the side, as if he didn't think Harry would notice Draco still observing him. "But I would rather that you excuse yourself."

"Excuse sounds like--" Harry put a hand up when he saw the way Draco turned towards him, ready to do battle. "I understand. I'll think about it and do what I can, all right?"

"That's the reason you keep me sane, you know."

Harry blinked, not understanding, and Draco reached out a hand and laid it on his knee.

"You can joke with me," Draco whispered. "I know you pity me, I know you think this is horrible, but you don't make _everything_ about that. Maybe you can't. If my mother was here, I know she would be so upset that I'd spend half my time comforting her. With you here, I can mourn. Thank you."

Harry had no idea what to say. He only touched Draco's shoulder and said nothing. Bringing up the times, again, when he hadn't been there to protect Draco seemed ungracious at the moment.

Draco leaned in, closer and closer. Harry watched him, wondering if he was going to whisper a secret he wanted not even Dementors to overhear.

Instead, Draco's lips brushed his cheek. "Thank you," he whispered. "Thank you, again and again."

Harry had to swallow. He had to pull himself together against the fear that someone might have seen. They couldn't have, he remembered. He'd blocked the door with the spell that obscured the sights inside the cell again.

And Draco was pulling back from him, curling into a ball so tight that Harry couldn't bear it. He probably thought Harry was rejecting him. Harry reached out and clasped a hand on his arm, and then pulled Draco in for a hug.

"I'm sorry," Draco whispered.

"Don't be. You took me by surprise, that's all."

Draco stared at him. Harry stared back. He had no idea what his face was conveying at the moment, but he tried to make it as warm and welcoming as possible.

Draco leaned against his side again. He said nothing for the rest of the time Harry spent with him, but his hold never loosened.


	4. Part Four

"Do you know why you're here, Harry?"

"No, sir."

It was an effort for Harry to keep his voice steady. In truth, he'd been dreading this interview ever since Kingsley had Flooed him that morning. And when he came into Kingsley's office and saw Gerald Jackson sitting off to the side, as smug as Dudley on his birthday, his dread had solidified in his chest.

But Harry still maintained the soldier posture and the slightly downcast eyes. By now, Kingsley as well as Jackson expected it of him.

"You're here because Mr. Jackson has reported that you were taking advantage of one of the prisoners."

Harry wanted to scream and lash out. When he was the only one who took care of Draco, the only one who even gave a damn whether he lived or died--

And then he saw the way Jackson was leaning towards him, and cooled his temper. Of course that was exactly what Jackson wanted him to do. By proving his point, Harry would get Kingsley's apologies and a removal from Azkaban, and probably a referral to a Mind-Healer. Harry _had_ to control himself, or the chance to help Draco would walk out the door.

With a heavy sigh, Harry focused on Kingsley again. "What are the accusations, sir?"

Jackson frowned. _Good_. Anything that displeased that bastard was a good thing for Draco.

"That you have, er, pursued a romantic relationship with someone under your care." Harry's calm reaction was unnerving Kingsley, too, or at least it seemed like it from the way Kingsley peered at him. He shuffled a few papers on his desk and sighed. "It stops short of rape, but there's the possibility of that."

_And of course he used concern for Draco as his excuse in making the report. Damn him. Damn him. Damn him._

Outwardly, Harry remained alert and attentive as he never could have if this was only about him. "I see. Can I ask what proof there is, sir?"

Kingsley exchanged a glance with Jackson, who had started to frown so heavily that Harry wanted to snicker. Still he was calm and waited, his hands clasped lightly behind his back. Kingsley finally turned towards him and said, "The amount of time you spend with Mr. Malfoy."

"Oh." Harry shrugged a little. "He's in pain from the Dementors, sir. I'm making sure that he doesn't go insane and deprive us of a punishment that hurts those who are sane most."

"I wouldn't have thought you would be so cold."

Kingsley sounded disappointed in him. And of course Harry couldn't explain what was really going on, with Jackson there. The most he could do was sigh wearily and say, "I'm showing as much compassion as I can, sir. I mean, he was my enemy in school and throughout the war. The few good things he's done can't outweigh the bad. And if I gave him special treatment that was good, wouldn't that just add substance to Mr. Jackson's accusations?"

Jackson scowled now as though something in his gut was paining him. Kingsley paused, then shuffled some more papers and said, "I see what you mean. There's also the fact that you obscure the door of the cell with some special charms."

Harry shrugged. "Keeping Malfoy sane does involve holding him and cooing to him like a baby, sir. It's the only thing he responds to. You can ask the other guards if he's ever had a bruise on him."

Another pause. Harry wondered if there was "proof" that Kingsley was reluctant to bring up, or if this was all Jackson had managed to come up with.

Kingsley finally coughed. "There's also the way that you took up the post of a guard in Azkaban within a few days of Mr. Malfoy coming to be a prisoner there."

Harry did let himself roll his eyes this time, because if he didn't, then Jackson would probably get suspicious and start thinking he had a plan. "That was within a few days of the end of the Death Eater trials, too, sir. There was only so much time I had. I would have applied earlier, but I was busy then."

"It seems reasonable to me," said Kingsley, and turned to face Jackson with a faint challenging air that heartened Harry. At least it meant Kingsley was on his side in all this. "So, Mr. Jackson. Do you have any more proof?"

"He spends too much time with him!"

"Explained already." Kingsley moved a hand without looking away from Jackson. He looked even more intimidating than he had the few times Harry had seen him fighting as a member of the Order of the Phoenix. "And I must admit, I resent the insinuations against Harry. Gerald. There's no reason to suspect him of--sexual misconduct with a prisoner."

"All those rumors about him and Malfoy being involved romantically--"

"I didn't know you were the sort to pay attention to rumors, Gerald. I may have misjudged you."

_You just lost the game_ , Harry thought in happy wonder. Jackson had made the exact same mistake he'd been trying to get Harry to make. He'd abandoned the pose of concerned, neutral observer and shown his grudge, and lost his temper.

"I meant only--it was the Ministry's reputation I was thinking of, sir, not the--"

"If this is only rumors, or based on rumors, then I'll have nothing more to do with this," said Kingsley with finality, and turned to Harry. "You're free to go, Harry. I understand that you're supposed to report to work anyway this morning."

"Yes, sir," said Harry, and nodded to them both, and walked out the door, suppressing the temptation to hum. Behind him, he could hear Kingsley ripping into Jackson.

_I won. He lost_. Harry worked to keep his feet on the ground and his face in a properly sober expression. _He won't dare try anything like that against Draco again_. 

Even knowing that Jackson was persistent and might try something else didn't worry Harry. After today, he strongly suspected Jackson would no longer be in charge of Azkaban, which would severely limit his power.

_And fighting for Draco like this is worth every second it takes._

*

"Can you tell me how long it's been?"

Harry had been telling Draco the silliest news stories he could remember from the past month, including the ones where reporters had followed him around and written breathlessly about what he ate for lunch. He paused when he heard Draco's question, though. "What do you mean?"

"How long have I been here? How much of my sentence do I still have to go?"

Harry swallowed his pity, mostly because he knew Draco would hate it. Then he said, "I didn't realize you'd lost track of that."

"Don't try to distract me, Harry."

Harry swallowed again and said, "You've been here six months. Five months still to go."

"I thought it was a year?"

"That you'd been here?" That worried Harry, since it showed that Draco's grasp on reality had slipped further than Harry had thought, even with all his efforts to keep him mindful of what was passing outside his head.

"No. My sentence. Six months and five is...eleven."

"They took a month off," said Harry, and hesitated as he tried to remember whether he'd told Draco that. Surely he _must_ have? It was the sort of news he would have rushed to him with ordinarily.

And then he remembered. That had actually happened before he became a guard at Azkaban, before he started trying to help Draco any way he knew how. He had assumed Draco had heard it already.

"Why did they take a month off?"

Draco's voice was hoarse and breathless. Harry took his hand and squeezed it tightly. "Because I begged them to. It wasn't pleasant, and I couldn't get you out of the sentence altogether, but some of the Wizengamot agreed that you were only a child for the majority of the war and the time you were a Death Eater, and they listened to me."

Draco froze for so long that Harry thought he'd been drawn back into a dream, or a daze, or maybe a Dementor Harry hadn't felt was approaching. Then he turned towards Harry and hissed like he'd suddenly discovered he knew Parseltongue.

"Don't you _ever_ tell me that you didn't fight for me enough again."

Harry jumped. Draco was staring at him with something in his eyes that almost approached the deadly hatred Harry had once seen there. Harry simply shook his head, wordless, not understanding.

"You told me about Jackson, about defeating him. You fought for me against him. You've managed to convince my mother not to sneak in here where _they_ could get her, too." Draco grabbed his breath and went on. "And now you tell me that you took a month off my sentence and I didn't even _know_?"

He looked as if he was a second away from punching Harry in the jaw. "If you ever, ever decide that you didn't do enough for me again, Harry Potter, I am going to shake you so hard."

As a threat, it left a lot to be desired. But as a means of putting the fire back in Draco's eyes and strengthening the clench of his hands, Harry thought it top-notch.

And that was the best reason of all to stop talking about how he hadn't fought, he decided. Draco didn't want to hear it, he didn't believe it, and it gave him strength to know that Harry had fought for him, which Harry's denial didn't. So he would stop saying that.

"When you look at it in that light," Harry said musingly, eyes locked on Draco's face, "maybe I did."

Draco pulled him in, eyes wandering between Harry's own eyes and his lips. Harry found himself holding his breath, leaning closer, and then Draco's hand was on his cheek and Draco's lips were covering his.

It was wonderful, an enchantment that Harry never wanted to end, unlike the kiss Draco had surprised him with a few days ago. He found himself leaning against the wall of the cell, cradling Draco and turning him a little so that they could both be more comfortable.

And all the time, he never worried that perhaps he hadn't blocked the door to the cell with the appropriate spells.

Draco surpassed everything else in his attention, his intensity.

They pulled back from each other slowly, and Harry closed his eyes and groaned a little as he thought of the way Draco's lips had tasted. He reached out with one hand, wanting to touch his cheek...

And found slick, salty wetness under his fingers.

"Draco, what did I do to make you cry?" Harry whispered. He pulled Draco closer, and Draco came with the pull, letting his head fall on Harry's shoulder for an instant.

"You keep me alive," Draco whispered. "And I wonder what will happen when I come out of Azkaban, and you're not there for me anymore."

Harry swallowed. It was hard to make that kind of commitment when he knew Draco would have his mum there, and maybe any other friends who might come back to him once he'd escaped the stigma of Azkaban. But on the other hand, how could he refuse?

Even if it turned out that Draco didn't need him then, he needed Harry now.

"If it turns out you want me," he said, and met Draco's eyes, and tried to convey all the particular meanings of "want" that he could with that sentence, "I'll be there."

And Draco swallowed in turn, and leaned against him, and his tears stopped. His shivering stopped. His clutch tightened. 

That, to Harry, was the most important thing.

**The End.**


End file.
